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Two Hymns to the Mother of God

Introduction

The Hymn to the Mother of God and Hymn for the Dormition, both written in 1985, form a pair. The first sets a text taken from the Liturgy of St Basil, sung on the feast of St Basil and on all the Sundays of Great Lent. It speaks of the cosmic power of the Mother of God, in whom ‘all creation rejoices’. Tavener sets it as a brief but extremely intense canon between two choirs, in three sections: the incandescent music of the first is repeated after the central section which hails the Mother of God as ‘sanctified temple, mystical paradise’. The second Hymn uses a text for the Feast of the Dormition (that is, falling asleep) of the Mother of God: she asks the apostles to bury her body in Gethsemane, and Christ to receive her spirit. The text is simply repeated three times, the scoring being varied: the first time simply has the chant sung over a three-part drone; the second has it sung in fifths and with its inversion; and the third has a rich parallel-chord harmonization.

Recordings

Arguably Britain’s greatest living choral composer, Sir John Tavener’s music is performed in churches and cathedrals throughout the land and at the most important state occasions. This recording includes The Lamb, perhaps one of the best-known cho ...» More

Details

In you, O woman full of grace,
the angelic choirs and the human race,
all creation rejoices. O sanctified temple,
mystical paradise, and glory of virgins.
In you, O woman full of grace, all creation rejoices.

In you, O woman full of grace,
the angelic choirs and the human race,
all creation rejoices. O sanctified temple,
mystical paradise, and glory of virgins.
In you, O woman full of grace, all creation rejoices.

from the Feast of the Dormition

No 2: Hymn for the Dormition of the Mother of God
O ye apostles, assembled here from the ends of the earth